At a time when lawyers are making more money than ever, "we
are starving the justice system," David Boies said at a keynote
address at the recent Florida Supreme Court Historical Society Annual
Dinner in Tallahassee.

While the justice system traditionally has been at the forefront of
expanding the rights enumerated in our nation's founding documents
to all our citizens, dangers lurk if lawyers lose sight of their
professional obligations and do not make the case for adequate court
funding, Boies said.

"Over the same period of time that I have seen the justice
system expand civil rights, expand human rights, bring our country
closer to the ideals of justice, I've also seen attacks on that
justice system--some intentional and some unintentional--and some of
those attacks have been in the form of economics," said Boies, who
has been referred to by The New York Times as "the lawyer everyone
wants."

Boies, who has served as chair of Boies, Schiller & Flexner for
the last 19 years, said the justice system is at a strange point where
there is a sense of having "both too much and too little." At
a time when lawyers' income has never been higher, it's ironic
that most states devote only about 1 percent of their budgets to the
justice system, he said.

"When the Constitution was written, it begins 'We the
People of the United States' and the we in 'We the
People' at that time meant primarily white male, protestant,
property owners," Boies said. "What you have seen over the
past 200 years is the expansion of the circle of who 'We the
People' represents and that expansion has been led by our justice
system and our justice system requiring itself to mete out justice more
equally, but also requiring our society to treat more people with
dignity."

But the justice system that has served the nation so well is not
something that can be taken for granted, and attorneys have an
obligation to advocate for its well-being, he said.

Over the course of his career, Boies said the practice of law has
moved from being a profession to where too often lawyers think of it as
a business, and while there is "nothing illegal or immoral"
about the market economy, that type of thinking "puts enormous
pressure on the legal profession not to do what professions do."

Too often, he said, there are pressures on firms to compete in
terms of how much money they are going to pay new associates, how much
they are going to pay their partners, where they stand in the American
Lawyers rankings.

When he entered the profession in the 1960s, the partners Boies
worked for made "a lot less money than we do now and they were
perfectly happy with how much they made and they had great lives."

Boies said their kids went to good schools, they drove nice cars,
and they had nice houses.

"They had everything they needed economically and had the
satisfaction of doing something they thought was important to their
communities, themselves, and to the kind of society they wanted to live
in and bequeath to their children and grandchildren," he said.

Today, Boies said, the profession risks losing that.

"Lawyers are not happier today than they were 50 years
ago," Boies said. "I see it in my partners and I see it in
young associates. The quality of life that has been given up is
something that each of us in the profession needs to be conscious of,
and we need to work together to try to bring back as much of the element
of public service and a dedication to the profession and the cause of
justice that we can."

People don't go to law school primarily because they think it
is the easiest way to make money; they go because they are interested in
the law and justice, he said. But once young lawyers enter the
profession, they soon get married, have children, and begin to focus on
personal economics and not on the profession.

"It is a natural tendency that can only be dealt with if the
leaders of the profession--the people who have been through it and are
now the managing and senior partners--are willing to try not only to
mentor, but to structure the practice of law, structure the law firms,
in a way that enables young lawyers to partake in what many of us had
the privilege of doing in term of public service and service to the
profession."

Boies said people are happy when they make money, but there is a
point of diminishing returns in making money.

"When I got out of law school, the average lawyer made about
half of what the average doctor made," Boies said. "Today the
average lawyer makes twice to three times what the average doctor
makes."

In Florida, the state court system runs on only 7 tenths of one
percent of the state budget and nationally the average is about 1
percent, he said.

"Think of what a small fraction of state revenues are devoted
to a co-equal branch of government and one that serves the people all
the time," said Boies, adding that even if a small amount more was
devoted to the courts it would make a tremendous difference.

He said while Florida is not as bad off as others; there are states
where lawyers can't get a court order unless they bring their own
paper.

Boies said while there are many special interests that lobby the
country's legislatures, the legal profession's special
interest is justice, and if lawyers are not out "advocating and
organizing" for adequate court funding, "nobody else it going
to have the incentive, the knowledge, or the desire" to do so.

"We have to make sure we don't let the system
deteriorate."

By Mark D. Killian

Managing Editor

Caption: BOIES

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